Friday, November 09, 2007

Sheer Vagrancy

It just occurred to me that in all the time I've been blogging I never mentioned the ex-Beatles yacht: The Vagrant.

Down in Funchal harbour are a bunch of odd restaurants - you know the kind - each table is on its own miniature row-boat; just touristy and odd.


Anyhoo, among these is a permanently moored (probably in cement) yacht called the Vagrant. The Beatles bought it in 1966 and used it to get away from all the craziness of super-stardom. The story goes that after Apple sold it in the early 70s, it hung out in Morocco, and was finally squodged by a storm in the Canaries.

These days, the Vagrant has been turned into a bar/restaurant, charging an extortionate amount for a beer (by Madeiran standards). But the interior appears relatively untouched, and you get a sense of it being a normal private yacht, with like... The Beatles hanging out on it.

The Beatles.


Very cool.

Obviously, there are no lengths the bar/restaurant won't go to to herald its famed past owners: down to photoshopping in the name of the yacht on to a photo of the fab four.


If they'd just evened out the angle a smidge, it would have been less obvious.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well John WAS a giant...wasn't he..?

Orlaith said...

Ha! Too true...